"There is only one power that determines the course of history . . . the power of ideas." — Ayn Rand

Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Who Should Be the First Woman on American Money?: An Update

The U.S. Treasury Department is considering a redesign of the $10 dollar bill. Last year I wrote about a Time.com/Money poll asking who should be the first woman on an American dollar bill, and argued that Ayn Rand should be that woman.

Born into slavery, she became one of America's first investigative women journalists -- a pioneer in the kind of reporting that holds the powerful to account, and is critical to democracy and justice.

Wells was an internationally respected leader in the anti-lynching movement, who exposed not only the evils of white mob violence, but the true motivations and sociology behind it. She went case by case, documenting proof that lynchings were actually a means of controlling and punishing blacks who competed with whites economically -- not revenge for criminal acts like rape, as perpetrators claimed.

It's a truth that still resonates today. Look at the unemployed Charleston shooter, who used that same bogus claim to frame himself as a victim: "You rape our women. And you're taking over our country. And you have to go," he reportedly told members of an African-American church, before unleashing a hail of bullets on them.

Wells used her reporting to advance the civil rights movement and get other white nations to shame Americans for lynching. She also advocated for the right of women to vote.

Wells sounds like a worthy candidate.

I submitted my choice in my comments:

There are many women deserving of the honor of being the first woman on American money. My suggestion is Ayn Rand.

Rand epitomized the American Dream; a penniless immigrant who emigrated to America to escape tyranny, and achieved great success as a philosopher/novelist whose philosophy of reason and individualism provides crucial foundational support for America’s Founding ideals but also a practical guide to personal living and fulfillment.

Granted, there are many great female achievers and contributors to the development of America. But one aspect of Rand sets her apart from other worthy contenders—her treatise honoring money. Rand identified the essential goodness and indispensable value of money to a culture of justice and peaceful coexistence. Consider a few excerpts from her tribute to money:

Money is a tool of exchange, which can’t exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. . . .

Those pieces of paper . . . are a token of honor–your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money. . . .

But money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. It will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you with desires. . . .

Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants: money will not give him a code of values, if he’s evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he’s evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent.

Money will always remain an effect and refuse to replace you as the cause. Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vices.

Rand has already been honored on a U.S postage stamp, in part because, as an avid stamp collector, she highly valued stamps. Lifewise, in part because she highly valued money—which, in a direct challenge to the Bible, she considered to be the root of all good—Rand deserves to be on the short list of final contenders. It’s long past time to honor a woman on our money. Who better to be the first woman on American money than the woman who explicitly identified the connection between “a country of money” and “a country of reason, justice, freedom, production, achievement” and argued that America embodied both ideals?

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As of this writing, Ayn Rand leads in the Time.com/Money poll with 46%.

About Me

Greetings and welcome to my blog. My name is Michael A. (Mike) LaFerrara. I sometimes use the pen or "screen" name "Mike Zemack" or "Zemack" in online activism, such as posted comments on articles. “Zemack” stands for the first letters of the names of my six grandchildren. I was born in 1949 in New Jersey, U.S.A., where I retired from a career in the plumbing, building controls, and construction industries, and still reside with my wife of 45 years. The purpose of my blog is the discussion of a wide range of topics relating to human events from the perspective of Objectivism, the philosophy of reason, rational self-interest, and Americanism originated by Ayn Rand.

As Rand observed: “The professional intellectual is the field agent of the army whose commander-in-chief is the philosopher.” I am certainly not the philosopher. But neither am I a field agent, or general. I am a foot soldier in that Objectivist army that fights for an individualist society in which every person can live in dignified sovereignty, by his own reasoned judgment, for his own sake, in that state of peaceful coexistence with his fellow man that only capitalist political and economic freedom can provide. While I am a fully committed Objectivist, my opinions are based on my own understanding of Objectivism, and should not be taken as definitive “Objectivist positions.” For the full story of my journey toward Objectivism, see my Introduction.

One final introductory note: I strongly recommend Philosophy, Who Needs it, which highlights the inescapable importance of philosophy in every individual's life. I can be reached at mal.atlas@comcast.net. Thanks, Mike LaFerrara.

Recommended Essays/Videos

Quotes I Like

Let me give you a tip on a clue to men’s characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it. Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper’s bell of an approaching looter.—Francisco d'Anconia

I love getting older...I get to grow up and learn things. Madalyn, 5 years old, Montesorri student, and my grand-daughter

The best thing one can do for the poor is to not become one of them. Author Unknown

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. Francis Bacon

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. Ronald Reagan

Thinking is hard work. If it weren't, more people would do it. Henry Ford

Intellectual freedom cannot exist without political freedom; political freedom cannot exist without economic freedom; a free mind and a free market are corollaries. Ayn Rand